


Snow Melting to Ashes

by tealmoon



Series: Yesterday's Dreams [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Alternate Universe - Underswap, Misunderstandings, Other, Past Sexual Assault, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6230542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tealmoon/pseuds/tealmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unexpected house guests lead to unexpected conflicts, and Papyrus learns something concerning about his brother's counterpart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Melting to Ashes

    He didn’t know what time it was when he finally woke up; the batteries on his clock died a month ago, and he hadn't managed to change them yet. Usually Sans woke him up, but that morning he drifted awake on his own. He could hear his brother banging around downstairs, and Papyrus figured it must be Wednesday-- his brother's day for late night patrols, when he had enough time in the mornings to clean up. Sans shouted something indistinct up the stairs, and Papyrus could only recognize 'laundry'. Papyrus probably had a few hours before his own shift started, but he really didn’t want to sleep all that away and leave his brother alone with a mysterious, possibly dangerous alternate universe counterpart.  
      
    Well, maybe not too dangerous, considering that ‘Red’ had been near delirious when they found him, was badly ill after laying in the snow for hours, and had mostly wanted to sleep after he realized they weren’t going to immediately kill him. Even then, he wasn’t going to leave his brother to take care of this guy alone.    
  
    He finally managed to lurch off his mattress and down the stairs a few minutes later, pulling his hoodie over his head. He slept in it last night, and many nights before, so he might as well toss it in the next load of laundry. His shorts weren’t quite as gross, and he wasn’t inclined to wander around the house naked with Red around. When he saw his brother in the kitchen, Papyrus immediately drifted over, dropping his hoodie in the nearby laundry basket as he went. It felt too early for words, to get all soppy in thanking Sans for cleaning up after him, so he just looped his arms around him from behind, pressing his teeth to the top of his skull in a brief kiss.  
   
    For a moment, everything slowed down, so slowly that time seemed to stop altogether as he realized what he'd just done. Papyrus’ bare ribs pressed against his back and their skulls against each other, close enough that he could feel a shaky inhale that became a hacking cough. This couldn’t be Sans—the Sans he knew didn’t have hairline fractures on the top of his skull, barely visible unless you got as close as Papyrus was at that moment. The next moment, his arms closed around air, and he had a second to wonder when his brother had learned to teleport before he looked up. He must have been so panicked that he could only manage a few feet of a shortcut, or he was unfamiliar enough with this world that he couldn’t think of where to go. Red pressed his back against the kitchen counter, breathing heavily, wearing Sans’ sweatpants and a faded shirt advertising Napstablook’s radio show. Of course-- his jacket and shorts had been stained with dust and snow, when they found him last night. Sans would have wanted to clean them up.  
            
    His brother had never looked at him like that before, eye sockets completely blackened, shaking so hard that he could barely stand. His brother didn’t react to a hug by laughing like he was about to die. How was he supposed to deal with Red when he had never met someone so aggressive and unhinged in his life?  
   
    "What the hell," Red giggled, scratching at his eye socket, where Papyrus could barely see a few tears forming. "You could have gotten me last night when I was on your couch. Probably wouldn't have even woken up, you could’ve done whatever you wanted. Why did you make me wait until now?”  
  
    "Red, what are you talking about?" He backed up a few steps, as Red looked like he was about to climb up the counter just to get further away. Papyrus was still blurred from sleep, and he couldn't follow what's going on, other than Red looked about to lose it. After being around him for a few hours, Papyrus had started to wonder if barely-concealed hysteria was just this guy's default.  
   
    "You could've had me last night when Blue was asleep, but no, I guess you want him to watch? I'm not going to just let you--" As his voice devolved in meaningless stutters, he waved his hand in a rush of crimson magic, more of it seeping from his eye and the enormous crack in his forehead. Even half asleep, Papyrus was still able to summon a wall of bones, just before Red started flinging femurs at him. Each bone seemed to exhaust him even further, and he clung to the counter with one hand. When he paused and dismissed the bones around him, Papyrus expected it to be over and let his defenses start to fade. And then, a moment later, he slammed them back up, as a Gaster Blaster appeared, hovering over Red. Like its master, its skull was covered in cracks, and half of its teeth were either missing or broken into jagged nubs. The blaster didn’t look sturdy enough to carry its own magic, but it began to charge anyway. Papyrus backed away, knowing a wall of bones wouldn’t protect him from a blast like that.  
   
    Rather than trying to dodge normally or use a shortcut, Papyrus turned his own soul blue and threw himself to the side. Between slamming into the wall and having the blast graze against his shoulder, his HP wasn’t in good shape, but taking the full attack would have killed him. The blaster readied another shot at Red’s command, although it was shaking itself apart with the strain, when Sans burst out of the laundry room and into the kitchen.  
   
    “Red! What are you doing?” His entrance startled Red enough that the blaster evaporated before it could fire again. He backed away but didn’t aim an attack at Sans.

  
    “He grabbed me half-naked,” Red snarled, gesturing at Papyrus’ ribs. “I have every right to protect myself from perverts.” Sans winced, clearly wanting to hug his counterpart but keeping his distance. Red turned to face Papyrus, shaking visibly. “Did you bring me here just to fuck me? You could have done it in the snow last night, it would have been easier.” Maintaining eye contact, Papyrus backed up to the laundry basket and pulled his hoodie back on, even though every movement stung.  
  
    “No one’s making you do any of that, Red,” Sans said, starting to blush cyan. “I don’t understand—"  
  
    “I can’t stay here without giving you something in exchange. There has to be a price. There’s always a price. You have to want something from me, everyone does.”  
  
    “Well…” Sans reached past Red to the fridge. “We want you to rest until your health recovers! And I want you to try my cooking and tell me your honest opinion of my pancakes! Is that a good enough exchange for you?”  
      
    “No! N-no, it’s not enough, I took your clothes and your couch, I attacked your brother, I could have killed him, I could have killed you, what the fuck?” He began coughing on his words, and it sounded bad enough that one of them probably needed to go get Red some medicine, though he would argue about that too.  
      
    Sans patted him on the back, and he flinched at even that slight touch. “It’s fine. What do you want on your pancakes Red?”  
  
    “Uh, um, I—I don’t—" Papyrus clenched his jaw to keep from laughing at Red’s confusion; if he did, it’d probably set Red off again, and they’d be there all morning. “S-syrup, I guess?”  
  
    Red seemed shell-shocked as Sans shooed him towards the couch, where he collapsed in a limp heap and didn’t move as Sans began to cook breakfast. Papyrus maintained his distance, leaning against the wall and trying not to move his blackened shoulder. Red kept glancing towards him, staring at the hint of singed clavicle visible at Papyrus’ collar. What the hell he was going to do with the mess of a skeleton on his couch?  
  
    “You know, kid, no one’s going to force you to have sex as a tradeoff for anything.” Red looked up sharply from where he was plucking bits of fluff from his sweatpants. “I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but here, Snowdin’s full of good people who would never do that to you. And I can promise you my brother and I are never going to hurt you like that.”  
      
    There was a pause as Sans rushed out from the kitchen to shove a plate into Red’s hands, and both of them waited silently for him to leave the room. “I don’t believe you,” Red finally whispered and began to tear into his pancakes like he thought someone was going to snatch them out of his hands. A few minutes later, Sans came back out with a plate for Papyrus and Red’s jacket, straight out of the dryer. He seemed to burrow into it, and as he pressed his face against the fur around the collar, he looked happy for the first time Papyrus had ever seen him.  
      
    “I guess we’ll just have to prove it to you, then.”  
  
      
      
    

**Author's Note:**

> I basically wrote this really late at night because Tumblr's full of enablers (which is why it's so sloppy), so if my characterization or verb tenses are muddled, let me know. 
> 
> This was written to be pre-UF Sans/US Papyrus, but feel free to read it as platonic. Or, hell, UF Sans/US Sans, if you're into that.


End file.
